Columbus Arrives in Hispaniola, Setting Stage for Forced African Labor

Columbus's arrival in the Caribbean initiated Spanish colonization of Hispaniola. The rapid enslavement and decimation of the Taíno population through forced labor, disease, and violence — reducing an estimated population of several hundred thousand to near extinction within decades — directly created the labor vacuum that Spanish colonizers would fill by importing enslaved Africans, making the Americas the largest destination for the slave trade.